Cool deal. I know that its not to hard to find the mini 14 mags but the others are probably more reasonable for quality. Were the Hi Points .223? The only one I knew of they made was the 9mm and .40 cal carbines.

Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect aplause, he noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self made laws....

Jim, I have no personal experience with the Hi-Point, so I can't help you on that one. The AR 18 was the answer to all of the design problems of the AR 15, the US government ignored it until they went away. I've never owned a 180, but I've had friends that have had them. The problem seemed to have been different contractors with widely varying quality built them.

I've had three Mini 14s, and really like them. My first Mini was a 182 series, and was more reliable than any M16A1 Uncle Sam ever issued me. I shot about 2000 rounds of ball, and 1000 rounds of reloads with some 60 grain hollow points I got from some guy in Montana that advertised in SGN. Never jammed, bobbled, anything, so I gave up and cleaned it. That one was the reason I still have a Mini now. I have a stainless ranch with the camo laminated stock, a Butler Creek folder and a Pro-Point installed. This one is kinda finicky with the steel-cased ammo, it won't feed them with 100 % reliability, but it will with brass-cased ammo. If you shoot the first four or five rounds at the pace of a bolt-action rifle and let the barrel heat up evenly, it will shoot with most semi-auto or thin barrel rifles.

Some of the bad rap the Mini gets on the internet is from magazines. There are plenty of Ruger factory running around now at decent prices, and they work great. The new Pro-mags work real well, I've bought four or five of the 20 round, and they all worked right out of the box. PMI made some good mags, too. I have yet to find a USA mag I could not make work, if you have some mags that don't work, they can be tweaked. Try the John Masen mags, he was a vendor for the 5 round mags. The very first mags he built after the Klinton Ban expired had a few bobbles, but he cleared that up, and now they work great also.

I've got a few I need to go through, I'll get dimensions from them, but it won't be in the next couple of weeks. Tweaking is easy. Most of these mags have a polymer "self- lubricating" follower. Should be called operator lubricated. They're injection molded, so take the floorplate off the mag, clean the inside of the mag and spring, and clean the sprue marks off the follower. Slick the sides of the follower up with emery cloth or a nail file. Reassemble, making sure the spring is to the rear, or you won't be able to fully load the mag.

Use a pair of needlenose pliers, I like the Klein ergonomic because of the angle and jaw size, and cycle the follower up and down, until it gets easier, usually at least 50 or 100 cycles. That's the operator lubrication. Now load about 6 or 8 cartridges in the mag, preferably brass cased because this is what you want the mags to work best with. Push the top case down about 1/2 or 3/4" with another bullet point, and release quickly. The case should not come out of the mag. Download one round and try the other lip, a couple of times. If you lose a case, the mag is a double feed waiting to happen. Use your pliers, and roll the lip in, you don't want to bend it, just roll it in, a little at a time, and try it again. Maybe even better than dimensions would be looking at a working mag, and trying to make the lips match those.

The other important dimension on a Mini mag is front to back. Again, use a good mag and compare, some of the softer metal mags get shorter as they are repeatedly inserted. Stick your pliers down in the front of the mag, and pull it out. Some of the sheet metal lugs can be helped by inserting a screwdriver under the lug, and gently raising and squaring the lug.

Had a terrible dream last night, what I Get for sleeping in my wife's bed. Anyway, what I was saying was about the dream, I was up to Camp Perry and dreamed that they were no longer allowing any .30 caliber rifles. If you were going to shoot in a match you had to have a M16/AR15 type rifle. E-Gads, glad I woke up from that one. For the longest time today I couldn't decide if it was true or if it was a nightmare. I mean the part about the rifle not spending the night in my wife's bed. Don't even own a 5.56 rifle, does this mean I have to go out and buy one?

"You have to prepare to die to really understand how to live".
Molôn Labé!
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Trap....Why would you go buy one? Your mother-in-law can already shoot a real gun...so why buy her a poodle shooter?

If you bought one for yourself....then you'd have to sell off all your Garands to me to placate Mrs. Trap! That way you wouldn't cut into to her Wally World shopping money!

High Points are garbage. AR-180 B's are junk also. Stop looking at cheap junk and start looking around for a good rifle and then get several cases of ammo and learn how to shoot it properly. Then go to a club and shoot a few rifle matches to keep up your skills. When you do this you won't need to ask us what kind of gun is good enough to buy. You'll know by experience.

HINT: Define what your mission is for the weapon and then train,train,train unitl you can do it in your sleep. Until then , you're just wasting your money and the gun dealer's time.

Jim
I owned a Hi-point once. Was a fun lil plinker but that was about it. As far as a 5.56 goes well a bushmaster is what I like the best but I have also owned a mini and those guns do take a beating. I think either are a good solid choice. A 30 cal is always going to be a better choice but I don't know what your monatary situation is. Whatever you decide to buy I would pick up at least 15 mags for it. You can rotate them out enough where they wouldn't take a set.
For ammo shop your gun shows or try to pick up ammo from somplace like cheaper than dirt. And lastly since it is a semi auto practicing with it for awhile like NYPro said is sound advice.
Hope this helps somewhat.
Take care Be safe Poacher.

I like the 5.56 as it is fun to shoot, cheap (although not as much as it used to be) and with almost no recoil. It is a great gun to plink with and to get new shooters into shooting. Ladies, children, etc. shouldn't have any problem with the recoil. I have shot a few Mini-14's in the past, and I picked up one a few weeks ago at a gunshow. I think for a nice little rifles, but I really like the AR platform also. I would tend to stay away from the Hi-Point, but that is just me. As far as magazine availability there are tons of Mini-14 mags available also.